When “Take Over Control” dropped four years ago, it was among a handful of breakthrough, crossover hits that helped usher in a new sound of house music, that someone out there dubbed “EDM”. Afrojack would ride this wave over the next handful of years, with raw, underground bangers like “Prutataa”, as well as other big room anthems like “Can’t Stop Me”, crossover hits like Pitbull’s “Give Me Everything”, and even a massive hip-hop song called “Look At Me Now”. With a sound that was fresh, new, and groundbreaking, other close knit producers like R3hab and Sidney Samson would be introduced through him, helping to carry the torch for the Dutch house sound, until eventually everyone was creating drops with wild pitched synths. The Swedes eventually moved in and stole the spotlight from the Dutchmen, and the EDM space race began, with everyone competing to make the next big hit.

Afrojack’s long-awaited, and frankly overdue, Def Jam debut album, Forget The World, is testament to the competitive spirit of EDM’s current state, with multiple attempts to score the next cultural, mainstream anthem. Yet its two lead singles, “Ten Feet Tall” and “The Spark”, both find Afrojack and company trying to create these inspirational, feel good songs, that unfortunately miss the mark. Matthew Koma is also tapped twice in attempt to capture that “Years” / “Spectrum” magic, but neither “Illuminate” or “Keep Our Love Alive” are able to do so.

Afrojack’s signature sound is still is a crisp, fresh and unique animal, as he proves on both “Born To Run” and “Freedom”. Both are decent songs in their own right, and further propelled by his resonating drops, as let’s not forget, he is a modern architect and pioneer of the drop itself. His boldest moment comes on “Mexico”, one of the album’s closing cuts, which finds him going outside the box with symphonic strings and somber pianos. It is clear that he wil benefit from exploring this kind of territory on later albums.

While some of the aforementioned songs simply miss the mark in terms of being crossover hits, there is a handful of songs included that simply don’t work. The trap fueled “Dynamite” with Snoop Dogg falls flat, while the Wiz Khalifa featured “Too Wild” seems like a strange inclusion. Once the rock fueled “Three Strikes” follows, its evident that this album is having a hard time finding its identity.

But Afrojack puts on an incredible live show, and its likely that hearing these songs at level eleven, while the confetti flies, will still be a lot of fun. The challenge, we guess, is for artists of his caliber to bottle and package that same energy into something that can be enjoyed outside of the club, as well. In any case, Afrojack is probably less concerned with what we think, hence the title, Forget The World.